Cognitive dissonance is defined as the discomfort one feels when holding to two mutually exclusive thoughts. It is natural to feel such discomfort since one of the thoughts must obviously be false.

However, when one holds two mutually exclusive thoughts by remaining untroubled and comfortably numb even in the face of such conflict, we call that the media.

Generally, the media holds its own hands to its ears yelling "La! La! La! La! La!" so that they do not have to face or cover any story that reveals the true horrors of elective abortion. So much so that when elective abortions make the horror manifest, such as in the Gosnell case, the media can barely muster a mention even in the face of relentless criticism.

Yet, when a case such as that of the Cleveland kidnapping occurs and includes forced abortions, the media can somehow face the truth about abortion. Why is that?

This is textbook cognitive DoubleThink.

Abortion is abortion and the result is an assault on the baby (and the mother) that results in the death of the baby. The media somehow find no issue with referring to the fetus as a baby, somehow have no issue with calling it murder, simply because it was not something the mother willed. As if will or desire can change the nature of the horror.

Now some might contend that the reason the media can cover these abortions and not others is because they are really covering the assault of the mother. Not so. Those women in Cleveland were assaulted in numerous horrific ways, but the forced abortions naturally rise to the top of the list of horrors, even for the media. This is because the media understand the brutality of the act and the murderous consequences.

Yet, at the same time they cover this, there are multiple stories of women and children being brutalized and murdered by an abortionist on trial and the media resolutely refuses to cover it. What is the difference.

The short answer is there is no difference. A better question might be, what is the difference in the dissonant mind of the media?

Will. Desire.

The women in Cleveland did not desire the death of their babies, so the babies deaths are horror.

The women in Philadelphia did desire the death of their babies, so the same brutality and death is acceptable, even laudable.

The idea that the horror, brutality, and death of babies is wholly dependent on who desires the death is absurd in the extreme.

The nature of the act is the same no matter who wants it.

Cognitive dissonance is actually a good sign that the conscience is troubled. Collectively, the media have no conscience and are free and comfortable in their DoubleThink.

65% of Americans believe the founders intended the US to be a Christian nation and 55% from that poll thought the US Constitution establishes the US as a Christian nation.
==============================
Pam, Christians are spreading these lies while claiming they “know the TRUTH.” You’re just one of their stupid sheep who prefers to stay ignorant of facts to keep your faith.

Posted by Jeremiah Dale on Tuesday, May, 14, 2013 12:05 PM (EST):

The “Establishment Clause” of the 1st Amendment, stating that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” is generally read to prohibit the Federal government from establishing a national church (“religion”) or excessively involving itself in religion, particularly to the benefit of one religion over another. Following the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and through the doctrine of incorporation, this restriction is held to be applicable to state governments as well.
============================
It’s an old shibboleth of those who want to inject religion into public life that they’re honoring the spirit of the nation’s founders. In fact, the founders opposed the institutionalization of religion. They kept the Constitution free of references to God. The document mentions religion only to guarantee that godly belief would never be used as a qualification for holding office—a departure from many existing state constitutions. That the founders made erecting a church-state wall their first priority when they added the Bill of Rights to the Constitution reveals the importance they placed on maintaining what Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore have called a “godless Constitution.”
=====================
I tried to paste my link to this quote, but it was rejected by this site. Catholics are so adept at not looking at what they don’t want to see.

Posted by Pam on Tuesday, May, 14, 2013 5:43 AM (EST):

JudeoChristian is not a “single religion” and I would submit your irreligious are killing more through abortion than any religion ever has if we continue to allow it. The U.S. has not rejected being governed as a nation under God. Only a strong powerful criminal element has.

Posted by Jeremiah Dale on Monday, May, 13, 2013 5:57 PM (EST):

Pam—laws were based on Judeo-Christian foundations because Judeo-Christians killed everybody else. The plagues Christians brought to the New World killed a majority of the natives, and massacres kill many more. European history from Constantine onward describes the destruction of pagan and “heretical” thought. Catholicism was the bloodiest force in politics before the first World War.
.
The U.S. is the first government to reject a single religion as basis for its laws. This means the Catholic church has no authority in our secular lives. The law is for protecting our freedom while we live on earth and in this country. Secular life is radically different than it was in 37 CE.
.
If you want to live under a religious authority, go to Saudi Arabia.

Posted by cheeriosinmypocket on Monday, May, 13, 2013 5:01 PM (EST):

I pray so, mrscracker! I pray so.

Jeremiah…you are not my husband, who, by the way encourages my thoughts, my ideas; we love with a depth that I think you may have never (as yet) experienced—I sure hope you do. Once my beloved husband and I discuss, pray about, etc., important matters, I submit to his authority (graced by Almighty God). Funny, but what most feminists don’t realize is about 98.5% of the time both husband and wife, by the grace of the Sacrament of Matrimony agree on important decisions. I love, respect and am devoted exclusively to the man that our God had in mind for me from the begining (my husband shared that with me about 22 years ago). I hope someday everyone will know God’s love and mercy as I have been blessed to know. Happy Trails!

Posted by Pam on Monday, May, 13, 2013 4:51 PM (EST):

Jeremy law sets limits for acceptable behavior and it has based those limits for it first two hundred years on its understanding of good and bad based on the Judeo-Christian foundations the nation was founded on. So killing innocent children has always been tragic and illegal until Roe when the Court invented a right of privacy that was never listed in the Constitution or its Amendments. Law decides a moral code. Not sure what you are not understanding. Law definesoral codes for our town or state or nation. They are manmade and not always in sync with Catholic teaching but Catholic teaching would hold one to a HIGHER standard not a lower one so there should be no fear of breaking a just law.

Posted by mrscracker on Monday, May, 13, 2013 4:16 PM (EST):

It looks like at least some justice has been enacted today in PA.

Posted by Jeremiah Dale on Monday, May, 13, 2013 3:24 PM (EST):

Pam—Law does not define morals—it regulates them. I though Catholic morals were defined by the Church. If you want to follow your Catholic morals at the expense of the law, that is your choice.

Posted by Jeremiah Dale on Monday, May, 13, 2013 3:19 PM (EST):

Celegans
.
Castro didn’t use contraception, and obviously the miscarriages were a consequence of the beatings to discipline the women and didn’t directly kill the fetus. He was an good Catholic too—so I guess I was wrong on both counts.
.
Mea culpa.

Posted by Jeremiah Dale on Monday, May, 13, 2013 3:09 PM (EST):

cheeriosinpocket
As a woman, you should keep your mouth shut—it says so in the Bible.

Posted by Jeremiah Dale on Monday, May, 13, 2013 3:07 PM (EST):

Jerry—abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. Women like Savita Halappanavar are denied abortions of non-viable fetuses because of Catholic ethics, and often die from septicemia and/or other complications of inevitable miscarriage.
.
Sometimes, Mr. Liberal, hard choices have to be made, and it should be legal to save one life instead of loosing two.

Posted by cheeriosinpocket on Sunday, May, 12, 2013 12:54 PM (EST):

Ah but I am a woman who thinks like a woman and knows what women are saying when they speak openly with other women. Sorry, you did not hear the conversing, as well as, I’m assuming you are not a woman…Q.E.D.

Posted by Jeremiah Dale on Sunday, May, 12, 2013 10:46 AM (EST):

cheeriosinmypocket-
.
I don’t assume you are lying about what you heard. I think you are hearing only what you want to hear.

Posted by cheeriosinmypocket on Sunday, May, 12, 2013 6:43 AM (EST):

Jeremiah
Perhaps I should. However, you keep making the assumption that I am lying about what I was listening to…why do you assume that? Perhaps you don’t want to face this? I am unsure, but I know what I’ve heard. If you are uncomfortable with what I tried to share, well then I am not here for your comfort.

Posted by Jeremiah on Saturday, May, 11, 2013 11:52 PM (EST):

cheeriosinmypocket

If you were told you “must have an abortion” by your unborn child’s “daddy” would you obey?. I guess you would answer “no,” because you think just because you are a Catholic, you would do such a thing. You are suggesting, however, that women who have abortions have no minds of their own and are so obsessed with their men that they will follow every command.

You have a black and white mind, but this is a color coded problem. You should do some soul searching—maybe you’ll find one.

Posted by Jerry on Saturday, May, 11, 2013 7:49 PM (EST):

It’s called the “abortion-distortion.” Anytime legalized abortion is discrettited, pro-abortionists, especially in the media, go into “damage control.” They don’t care that women kidnaped, imprisoned and raped were brutally forced to abort (“miscarry”) their unborn offspring. That’s collaterol damage to them. They want to make sure they can get abortions whenever they want them.

I’m gay, Atheist, uber-liberal and left-wing. I want to see abortion legally abolished.

Posted by cheeriosinpocket on Saturday, May, 11, 2013 7:35 PM (EST):

bobpodes…exactly! the absolute absurdity of radical liberalism that has taken over the white house, the supreme court, and those legislative bodies of government.

Posted by bobpodes on Saturday, May, 11, 2013 7:07 PM (EST):

The point is very simple: Mr. Castro is being considered for killing the babies in the pregnant women by kicking them in their stomach by the same government that asserts that those babies have no right to life until the moment they are born.

No…not end of discussion with you. End of discussion for those women. They were told they must have an abortion by the daddies. There are a lot of women who very much have given themselves to “their man” to find out it was just sex for him and not what she thought it was for her. Devastated, they still listen to what “their man” tells them to do which in these cases was to abort their mutual child…to kill their baby. Do you understand?

Posted by Jeremiah Dale on Saturday, May, 11, 2013 3:07 PM (EST):

No, not end of discussion—How do you know what the women wanted—or even if they were Catholic? You are putting Catholic words into their mouth and exploiting their ordeal for your own agenda.

We all agree that Castro is evil, but he wasn’t sent by God to kidnap and torture three women so Catholics can feel good about themselves.

Posted by Pam on Saturday, May, 11, 2013 12:24 PM (EST):

Jeremiah; Law is a moral issue not a secular issue. It makes something’s right and some wrong. It has a basis in mans understanding of himself as a created being in this country.

Posted by cheeriosinpocket on Saturday, May, 11, 2013 11:21 AM (EST):

Jeremiah Dale,
I also was listening to a discussion on this from women (mommies) who felt they had “no choice” because the daddies said, yes, they will abort the baby…end of discussion.

Posted by MikeinCT on Friday, May, 10, 2013 7:38 PM (EST):

I would bet that the media is recognizing the horror in the actions in that the assaults were on women who 1. were already assaulted through rape and then 2. were assaulted with fists to the point of 3. suffering having the babies that they wanted (we presume) to keep assaulted to death within them. The concern isn’t really for the babies here. At least not among the media.

Posted by Betsy on Friday, May, 10, 2013 1:55 PM (EST):

Glad to see I’m not the only one who noticed this double-think.

Posted by Celegans on Friday, May, 10, 2013 1:28 PM (EST):

Jerimiah,

What they are saying is that what the women wanted does not define the nature of their children. He didn’t violate a “pro-choice ethic” as he frankly made a choice over someone else, for someone else, that had horrific and horrible and damaging assaults on that someone else. It is in the same category as pro-choice.

Castro was pro-choice on raping those poor women. Others are pro-choice in murdering their own children. Both are monstrous.

Posted by mrscracker on Friday, May, 10, 2013 1:18 PM (EST):

Inconvenient truths…

Posted by Kim on Friday, May, 10, 2013 12:59 PM (EST):

I was JUST trying to explain this to a co-worker today. Thank you for stating it more eloquently that I ever could have!

Posted by Jerimiah Dale on Friday, May, 10, 2013 12:44 PM (EST):

How do you know the women women wanted? Castro didn’t give them a choice. He violated both Catholic and pro-choice ethics.
.
Law is a secular issue—from birth to earth. Catholic doctrines cannot be enforced. So stop further exploiting Castro’s victims for your benefit.

Posted by mrscracker on Friday, May, 10, 2013 11:35 AM (EST):

Toby, you expressed exactly what I was taking too long to write.

Posted by mrscracker on Friday, May, 10, 2013 11:34 AM (EST):

And, these were children conceived through brutal captivity & rape, which in many minds is equated with “no-right-to-live”.That includes the little girl who was rescued.When you put a face on those children, you see there’s no difference.Our circumstances of conception,however sad, don’t define our worth.

Posted by Toby on Friday, May, 10, 2013 11:33 AM (EST):

AND the babies were concieved through rape, yet their death is still a horror.

Join the Discussion

We encourage a lively and honest discussion of our content. We ask that charity guide your words.
By submitting this form, you are agreeing to our discussion guidelines.
Comments are published at our discretion. We won't publish comments that lack charity, are off topic, or are more than 400 words.
Thank you for keeping this forum thoughtful and respectful.

Patrick Archbold is co-founder of Creative Minority Report, a Catholic website that puts a refreshing spin on the intersection of religion, culture, and politics. When not writing, Patrick is director of information technology at a large international logistics company in New York.